


Fate Don't Know You Like I Do

by GarbageFireFic



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Embarrassing Bodily Functions, Embarrassment, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Omega Natsu, Tagging as I go, omega lucy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 01:32:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8601958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GarbageFireFic/pseuds/GarbageFireFic
Summary: Natsu is far too old to go into heat for the first time but his body doesn't seem to care about that. 
Now that they're both omegas, Natsu and Lucy aren't supposed to be together, but neither of them care about that.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is planned as at least three parts, but it could end up as a stand alone as it is or I might go off the rails and make it longer. It really just depends on if my muses stay on subject or move on. 
> 
> I tried to edit this a bit, but I really didn't feel like spending too much time on it, so I apologize for any big errors. 
> 
> For some reason, I really like the idea of Omega Natsu. There are a few other fics that cast him as an omega that are nice, but very unfinished, but I'm a pathetic NaLu shipper and my brain did this. This is set maybe a few weeks after they come back from Tenrou Island.
> 
> The title is the same as a song by Desi Valentine and it's probably one of the most romantic songs I've ever heard. I swear I definitely wasn't in the bath listening to it on repeat when I came up with this.

Natsu looked under the weather. He arrived at the guild early and first surveyed the mission board, his face growing distinctly pale in the same way he became on long train rides. After only a short squint at the posted missions, he shuffled to a table an unusual distance away from the guilds action and stayed there for the rest of the morning. The behavior was strange enough to have Lucy concerned. She'd watched him progressively wilt into the wooden table and chair as the morning wore on, Happy flitting around him talking about fish and Charle and everything else Happy had in his repertoire of one-sided conversation subjects.  

Lucy extricated herself from Levy and the enormous translation job she'd been helping her with sometime around noon. Natsu had evidently given into whatever was ailing him and had his forehead resting against the table's surface, with his arms curled around his head as if he were trying to block out the light. Happy had run off to pursue a lunch with Charle, so Lucy took it upon herself to investigate and maybe have lunch together if he didn't actually fee as awful as it seemed.  

 

"Natsu, are you okay?" She asked as she slid into the chair across from him.  

 

Natsu huffed air up through his bangs and shook his head in the negative.  

 

"Are you motion sick?"  

 

The only thing she'd ever seen him this sick over was motion sickness. He shook his head again. She opened her mouth to ask him if he wanted her to walk him home, when suddenly his entire posture abruptly stiffened. She just barely heard his squeaked oh, shit. Then the smell hit her. Natsu raised his head and gaped at her with a look of absolute horror like she'd never seen on him even in the heart of seemingly impossible battles. Lucy felt her own shock reflected in her face and her hands covered her mouth as she stared back.  

The faint plop of liquid dripping onto the floor reached Lucy's ears at the same moment Natsu's face, neck, and chest all flushed impossibly red. The sound continued and Lucy watched incredulously as tears of mortification rose in Natsu's large, dark eyes. She looked around the guild and realized with a lump in her chest that the scent had already exceeded the limits of their table.  

Levy along with Jet, Droy, Gajeel, and Pantherlily sat closest, having relocated to take her lunch break from researching with her friends. Levy knew Lucy's intimate schedules, and the stunned expression on her face said exactly what Lucy felt. Both Gajeel and Lily seemed to have caught on as well, while Jet and Droy looked confused by their friends behaviors.  

Which meant she wasn't hallucinating and she wasn’t mistaken.  

Natsu was in heat. He'd slicked all over himself right in the middle of the guild, and he was clearly paralyzed by humiliation, hormones, and shock. Empathetic alarm flooded through her and she jumped to her feet as she darted around the table to wrap her arms around him. She whispered about what she believed was happening into his ear and began coaxing him out of his seat, which he did, gingerly and with more care for his movements than she'd thought him capable.   

Levy joined them, crowding in closely on Natsu's other side, while Gajeel hovered behind him. Gajeel was all alpha, but he'd already chosen Levy and she him, making him better able to handle Natsu's rather pungent pheromones. They slogged their way to the door, Natsu silent and stiff between them. A hush washed over the rest of the guild as the left, but as far as Lucy could tell, no one else had seen what was actually happening. She wanted to spare Natsu as much embarrassment as possible and was so grateful for Gajeel and Levy blocking the rest of the guilds sight. While they wouldn't be kept in the dark on what was happening with Natsu, surely he wouldn't want everyone to see a huge wet stain on his backside!  

 Lucy ushered them to the side of the small guild building and steadied Natsu against the outside wall. She grimaced as his muscled trembled underneath her fingers, but knew from her own experiences that the pain and fatigue of a strong heat could be completely crippling and she was sure his stress contributed to his body's reaction.   

 

"Natsu," she said. His dark eyes glanced up and her through his bangs, which had flopped onto his forehead during his nap from wear and sweat. "Do you want to go home or can I take you to my house?" 

 

"I don't want to walk through town like this," he answered quickly. 

 

"Of course," she said. "How about we get to your house for a change of clothes and we'll go from there?" 

 

Natsu nodded and pulled himself away from the wall, only to be brought up short by his weak, trembling legs and aching stomach. He peered around Lucy at the forest beyond and couldn't stop the wave of dread and exhaustion that washed over him. His house was downhill and miles away. Lucy's was all the way through town. His nostalgia for the old guild and location seared through him and he sniffed as he held back sudden and surprising tears of longing and frustration.  

It was like every negative emotion that he escaped normally was conspiring to overwhelm and destroy him from the inside.  

 

"Oh, Natsu," Lucy cooed, running a hand through his sweaty bangs and forehead. "It'll be okay." 

 

She took one of his hands from where they'd been curled against his stomach and gently encouraged him away from the wall, and some of the confusing emotions he was drowning in ebbed away. Her hand, despite the heat raging through him, felt warm and tiny. 

 

He glanced at Levy and Gajeel, who were both watching him. Levy looked concerned, but Gajeel seemed more shocked than anything. Natsu sympathized. As they passed, Gajeel raised his hand as if to grab Natsu and Natsu couldn't stop the flinch that rippled through his tense muscles and pulled at the ache in his middle. 

 

"Do you, um," Gajeel frowned, stuttered. "Do you want me to carry you?"  

 

"Hell no!" Natsu snapped, his pride flared, despite how incredibly tempted he actually was. 

 

"Okay, sorry, damn! Just trying to help," Gajeel placated. 

 

"Thank you, Gajeel, but we can make it," Lucy said. 

 

The walk through the forest to his house was every bit as agonizing as Natsu had figured it would be, but focusing on putting one foot in front of the other kept his mind off his blooming humiliation. The complete terror he felt over what his body was doing to him, however, was more difficult to escape. The pain wasn't the worst he had ever felt, but he couldn't help but think of the time he'd eaten Etherion. That had burned and ached all the way down and his insides had hurt for days afterwards. This wasn't as wide spread, but it's intensity was comparable.  

 

"How are you holding up?" Lucy asked him.  

 

"Kind of wish we'd grabbed Happy right about now," Natsu answered honestly. He may not have wanted Gajeel carrying him, but the exceed could have gotten him home in less than half this time.  

 

"If I'd seen him at the guild I would have grabbed him," she said.  

 

"I think he went somewhere with Wendy and Charle," he informed her.  

 

She frowned back at him as he puffed for breath. He could normally have run home and back several times over before getting out of breath and they both knew it. Natsu straightened himself out and tried to show less how incredibly tired he felt.  

 

"I could summon Horologium if you want," she offered.  

 

"I can make it, Luce, really. I'm fine,"  

 

"I just know how it is," she answered. "My first time was definitely one of the worst. I thought I was going to die, honestly!" 

 

He chuckled. "I've felt worse. I'm not a 12 year old girl." 

 

She huffed and crossed her arms under her breasts, turning her nose up at him.  

 

"I know that, Natsu, but you don't know how bad it can get. Mine was a normal heat, even if it was the first. You shouldn't be going through this for the first time now. Something could be wrong."  

 

He focused at the spot between her shoulder blades and tried not to think of something being wrong with him on top of all this.  

 

When they finally arrived at his cottage in the woods, he rushed through the piles of keepsakes and dirty clothes in his front room into his cramped bathroom. He removed his now sopping wet pants and threw them on the ground, his nose wrinkled from the overwhelming hormonal aroma. He had no bathtub, but he did have a narrow shower stall. He crouched at the bottom the stall feeling the hot water roll off his hair and shoulders for a long time and allowing the unfamiliar and intense emotions roll through him.  

 He'd been embarrassed before. He did dumb shit all the time and it didn't always bounce off of him as much as he tried to let others think. This was real, true humiliation. He didn't know how he'd ever look Gajeel or Levy in the face again. And oh, god, they hadn't cleaned up the mess he'd left on his seat! That meant someone else would have to do it. Everyone would know by the time he was able to go back to the guild, if he could ever force himself back.  

 He heard movement outside the door as Lucy bustled around. Furniture scraped across the floor and dished clanked. He had no doubt Lucy was hoping to make him comfortable if he decided to stay here rather than her place. The thought of her brought a completely different storm of emotion. Lucy was an omega and she was his closest friend aside from Happy. As embarrassed as he was for her to see him like this, he could get over it. No, what killed him the most, more than anything else his overactive, overwrought mind could throw at him, was that he'd have to give up on her. 

He'd never said anything, always held himself back, but deep inside he'd always held out hope that he and Lucy would be together one day, as a couple. It wasn't something he obsessed over. He was happy with their friendship and he wasn't a very sexual person most of the time. He was certain, though, that if he ever did that with anyone at all he'd want it to be Lucy. On long, lonely nights when he couldn't sleep and he let his mind wonder, he'd sometimes let himself imagine what it would be like to hold her hand in the guild, sleep next to her every night without receiving a Lucy Kick to the face in the morning; what it would be like to kiss her and call her his.  

He'd already been extremely hesitant to ever pursue a relationship beyond friendship with her because of their dynamics. She was an omega and he had been a beta. He worried he'd never be able to provide and satisfy her like she needed. He didn't know a lot about any of that, but he knew enough from a traumatizing and awkward talk with Erza when he first dragged Lucy into the guild with him. He couldn't do for her what an alpha could. 

But now what good would he be to her? Was he ever allowed to be with her? There were rules and laws on who could be with an omega, and even more on who could be with a male omega. After this he was going to be subject to those rules and laws he'd never even thought much of at all. Male omegas were hardly heard of, let alone seen.  

He was one now, and it all suddenly seemed horribly, tragically unfair. 

His fingers curled and gripped tightly at the hair at the back of his head and let the hurt and anger all well over from the pit of his chest to spread through his body. He put his face in his trembling knees and let himself cry.  

 

Lucy stepped away from the door where she'd been listening to Natsu in his shower. She knew it was rude, but he'd been in there for so long she began to worry. She knew he was upset and she knew what heat hormones could do to a person, but it still broke her heart to hear him so upset.  

 When Lucy had run away from home, it had of course been to make her own way and become a guild wizard, but a huge factor that propelled her to make that decision had been to escape her fate as a wealthy Omega. While dowries were outdated for normal women, she knew her father had had no shortage of high paying offers for her hand in marriage. When she really thought about it all these years later, she was struck by how he'd never asked it of her. She'd waited, feared, and anticipated it more every year she grew older.  

Even when Jude had lost everything, he hadn't asked her for that. Omegas didn't have full legal status, he could have demanded it if he'd wished. This was another one of those things that made Lucy's heart ache so tremendously when she thought about her father. For all their issues, the man had truly loved her. 

 The thought of her own limited legal autonomy made her worry more for Natsu. As narrow as her own rights were, they were going to be worse for Natsu, if they even registered him. Maybe she could just claim she had more heats that she really did and give Natsu they extra suppressants.  

Thanks to starting his heat rather publicly, Makarov would undoubtedly know about Natsu by the time they returned to the guild. It would be up to him what they did, surely, and Natsu. She really hoped Natsu would have a say in the matter. Makarov had always treated Lucy and Levy the same as everyone else, but Lucy was aware that he took more of a risk shielding Natsu from his status as a male omega that he did a female omega.  

Female omega were rare, but overall not so incredibly different from a typical female. Their heats made them more satisfying for an alpha in rut, but an alpha could also be adequately fulfilled by any other. Female omegas were excellent if their partner wished for a large family, being more likely to conceive and carry multiples. Lucy had been told her natural scent and lubrication were more pleasing.  

 As with male omegas, it all came down to status. Wealthy and powerful Alpha wizards the world over wanted to boast of an omega partner. Many of the laws were archaic and generally ignored, but they were still valid.  

There were also prejudices. She'd rarely had issues with any, as she didn't announce the status of her reproductive organs everywhere she went, but it was entirely legal for anyone to turn an omega down for a job or housing. Much worse, often alphas weren't charged for rape and assault of omegas, as they could claim the omega's scent robbed them of their reasoning.  

Lucy knew this was entirely bullshit. She also wasn't too worried about Natsu. He already had his own home and he could take care of himself. If word got out that Fairy Tail's famous Salamander Dragon Slayer was also an omega, it could change the way people treated him. She didn't want that for him.  

As she went about pulling a large stock pot out of Natsu's cabinets to start soup, she tried to push these thoughts from her mind. It was all speculation for now and none of it was anything she could control. She began to chop Natsu's meager and wilted vegetable supply and tossed them in the pot with some water. She felt the pressure change of the bathroom door opening more than she heard it and strained her ears to hear Natsu moving about. It was strange to have to listen for him, he normally moved with such recklessness and excitement that he left no doubt to his location.  

She did hear him pad into the kitchen on bare feet, the wooden boards creaking underneath his weight, and she glanced back at him to see him still quite wet with his hair flat over his face and dripping onto his naked shoulders and down his chest. She blushed and looked away. Looking at his chest when she thought he was a beta was different somehow. At least he was wearing pants.  

 

"I thought we could stay here at least long enough to rest and get something to eat," she said. 

 

He hummed at her in reply and sat down at the kitchen table. 

 

"I really do think you should come to my apartment though. I have everything set up for a heat there and here you don't even have a bed. Believe me, you aren't going to be comfortable in your hammock for this." 

 

"It was bad enough just getting this far, Luce," Natsu complained. 

 

"I know, but you barely have enough food for tonight and I don't want to have to run back and forth to town. We can stay until Happy gets here and he can help us get you there if you need," she turned the burner up higher to make the water boil faster now that all the vegetables were in, then rummaged through his refrigerator for soup bones of some kind as an afterthought.  

 

He sighed, but didn't argue, which really said everything she needed to know about his current physical and mental state.  

 

"And you'll need other supplies too. You really probably are already going to go through another pair of pants while we're here at least. And your symptoms will probably get worse. I want to be able to give you pain killers. Plus, there are some other things that I should probably show you how to do that we can't do here," she said, her face burning. 

 

The thought that she would have to teach Natsu how to properly take care of his health and hygiene while in heat was uncomfortable. She knew it was worse for Natsu, so she tried to keep her voice and body language casual. Silence descended on them again and she listened to Natsu's breathing. It wasn't labored now that he wasn't hiking through the woods, but it still sounded more erratic to her than usual. 

 

"Are you in pain?" She asked. 

 

"Nothing I can't handle," he answered defensively.  

 

"Okay, but let me know if it gets to be more than you can. Please don't make yourself suffer more than you already have too,"  

 

 

 

Natsu watched her in his kitchen as she made him a home cooked dinner and worried about his comfort, and felt his chest and throat constrict again. This was the sort of thing he'd imagined he'd share with her, had he ever gotten up the courage to tell her how much he cared for her. Now, this was probably the closest he'd ever get.  

Time passed excruciatingly slow. The soup needed to simmer for quite a long time and he wasn't exactly feeling up to conversation. The ache in his middle seemed to have abated a bit in the hot shower, but the fatigue all over his body was worse. He wanted a nap, but as tired as he was, he couldn't seem to keep his legs from bobbing and his fingers from fidgeting. Exhaustion and restlessness weren't a combination he had much experience with and it was almost a pain in and of itself.  

Lucy disappeared and then reappeared sometime later with a large sack of his clothes and personal belongings for when they would leave for her apartment and set them on the table in front of him. It was then that he felt another gush like he had earlier in the guild and wetness seep once again into the seat of his pants, although not to the same degree as it had earlier. Along with it, just like then, he felt a surge of pressure and heat build from the base of his spine and travel like electricity through his belly straight to his cock.  

This time he couldn't contain the gasp that accompanied the sensation and he tried his best not to writhe, although he still couldn't help but stretch and twist his legs together. While physically pleasurable, it was about the last thing he wanted to feel at that moment and mentally begged his dick to stay soft even as he felt it begin to harden.  

 He startled when Lucy laid her hand on the back of his neck near his hairline, not even realizing he'd bent double over his kitchen table. She rubbed at the fine hairs and scratched her fingers over the knobs of his spine, and while that would have been wonderful had he been in pain like he figured she thought, as it was it made the feelings of arousal just that much more intense and prolonged. 

 

"Stop," he croaked, and he tried to stamp down the desperation and disappointment the surged in him when she yanked her hand away as if he'd burned her. 

 

"I'm sorry! I just thought, since you'd only said anything about pain, I'm sorry," her hands failed in front of her as she apologized. "I should have thought of that, really!" 

 

"It's okay. Just maybe don't touch me for a while," he said.  

 

"Of course!" 

 

His door flew open at that moment and a blur of blue and white soared through it at high speed and caused it to bounce off the wall with a loud thud. Natsu jumped as Lucy shrieked, but he already knew it was Happy. The exceed halted his flight with Natsu's face, Natsu's brain moving to slow to actually catch his friend like usual, and knocked him sideways and almost entirely out of his chair.  

 

"Happy!" Lucy yelled as she finally realized it was the exceed.  

 

"Natsu! Is it true?" The exceed cried, still clinging to Natsu's face.  

 

Lucy plucked Happy off of Natsu, grimacing at the claw marks he felt. Natsu rubbed the back of his head, his eyes diverted from them.  

 

"It's true, Happy. Natsu is an omega like me," 

 

"It doesn't change anything," Natsu said, determined and decidedly more Natsu like. "Don't get all weird on me, Happy." 

 

The exceed nodded without hesitation and Lucy grinned. Sure, there were new things to worry about, but Natsu had her and the guild. Master would never let any harm come to Natsu and she could help him get his symptoms under control.  

 

"He's right," she agreed. "I've been an omega all this time and it's never mattered at all!" 

 

Natsu grinned at her and she grinned back.  

 

"Is that dinner?" Happy asked, sniffing the air. 

 

"Yup! And afterwards we can all go to my apartment. We can have a proper sleep over now that we're both omegas, Natsu. No one will even think it's weird when you sleep in my bed,"  

 

 

Natsu didn't let his smile falter. While he wanted to sleep next to Lucy unimpeded, that wasn't the reason he wanted, but he'd take what he could get. If being an omega meant he and Lucy had one more thing in common then he guessed he couldn't complain. He couldn't really lose something he'd never had, and now he needed to try to focus on any positive in this mess that he could find.  

Natsu suffered his symptoms stoically in front of Happy. An hour and another change of pants later, they ate dinner and prepared to leave. After eating and gathering his morale, Natsu felt a lot better and ready to make the trek to Lucy's apartment, although Happy made sure Natsu knew he'd be more than glad to carry him if needed. Despite a resurgence of his cramps halfway there and for the rest of the walk, it was an uneventful and even almost pleasant journey, with his two best friends goofing around trying to lift keep his spirits.  

They arrived just as the sun was beginning to slip below the horizon. Lucy's apartment was tidy and comfortable, as always. It was decided that Happy would go see if Lisanna or Wendy would let him stay with them once Natsu's heat got into full swing, but until then, they tried to relax and have a nice night together.  

Following a disturbing explanation of pads to Natsu while both crammed into her bathroom, Lucy set Natsu up on her bed with a hot water bottle, a mountain made from every pillow she had in her apartment, and blankets that he just kicked off anyway. Before he could even relax and truly start to feel comfortable, his stomach cramps sent him running back and forth from the bathroom. Lucy pulled out her book on omega anatomy and showed him the chapter on male heat, most of which he read while sitting on the toilet. 

Apparently this was normal, but the explanation was so gross he slammed the book down on the sink and ignored it for the rest of the night. 

Lucy was great. She didn't say or ask awkward things, if he needed something she had it, if he needed her to completely ignore the situation, she did.  

She pulled out a radio lacrima and they listened to Jason yell into the microphone about the latest celebrity mage and guild gossip. She made popcorn and sat on the bed with him long after Happy dozed off at the foot of the bed. She made him laugh. She made him feel like everything was fine. 

But it wasn't. This was a life altering event for him. He knew he'd be able to go on as a wizard, that wasn't changed. Gramps would never make him sit out missions and fights just because of his gender, let only make him get married and push out a bunch of butt babies. At the same time, he was becoming more and more aware of his new limitations, namely because as the night wore on he fell more and more hopelessly in love with his best friend. Who was excited about the slumber parties they could now officially have because now there was no way people indecent things could possibly happen between the two of them.  

It was as he attempted to discreetly watch the curve of Lucy's lips while she spoke and how the light and shadow curved around her breasts that he become aware of a rapidly building warmth in his lower body. He knew this had been coming, but he'd still hoped somewhere deep inside that he would somehow just skip this part.  

He ignored it. It wasn’t that bad yet and with all the blankets and pillows Lucy had piled around him it wasn't much effort to conceal his erection. He hadn’t had much issue with inappropriate boners in the past since he rarely had them at all. Now that he thought about it, maybe that should have been an indication that something weird was going on, but he'd thought he was just more into fighting than fucking. He may have been a little short, but it wasn't like he was effeminate like most male omegas and his muscles and personality didn't seem to indicate a lack of testosterone, not to him or anyone who knew him. 

It didn't go away, to his total lack of surprise.  A huge part of him wished he were back at his home and alone, but he knew Lucy never would have never left him on his own. Most omegas didn't go through this alone the first time, unless they were very unlucky. Although according to the book, the older the first heat, the more intense the sexual symptoms, whereas younger omegas in their first heat would mostly experience the pain, fatigue, and other physical symptoms.  

Tingles spread from the base of his spine, all over his body, centering in his cock and ass and he started to lose track of what Lucy was saying. He was sweating and clutching at the pillow in his lap like it was trying to get away.  

How the hell was he going to deal with this? He'd never felt anything close to this level of sexual need and had only ever passively tried to jerk himself off out of curiosity maybe a handful of times. He wasn't a bashful man, but there were all sorts of new and weird things happening to his body and he felt overwhelmed by intense anxiety in Lucy's presence. So he ran to the bathroom again to hide, maybe for the rest of his life.  

 

 

Lucy wasn't shocked when Natsu bolted out of the bed while she was mid sentence. She'd watched as a blush crept over his cheeks and slowly worked its way down his neck to disappear underneath his scarf. She had kept up her monologue, mostly just prattling on about a new novel idea, and tried not to show she saw when he grabbed one of her pillows and pressed it into his very noticeable hard-on. She could tell he was embarrassed and didn't want to make it worse for him. 

After the door slammed shut, she got up and woke Happy. It was only almost eleven-thirty, and while late, she knew most likely at least Charle would still be awake to let him into Fairy Hills, as she tended to be quite a night owl. If worst came to worst for Happy, he would be fine on his own in his and Natsu's home. He was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, he just hated to be alone. 

She helped Happy gather his things and quietly said goodbye to him at the door, then watched from the window as he sleepily floated down the street toward Fairy Hills.  

 She wondered if she should leave as well. Natsu's sexual symptoms were going to be much worse than if he had started at a normal age. He was starting so late, it was very difficult to predict what his body would do. Unless something went terribly wrong, Lucy planned to let him be for most of this, but he needed supervision and afterwards they were going to see Porlyusica. What's more, the moment Lucy got even the slightest indication that things weren't all well, she was bringing the cranky old woman here. 

Lucy wasn't sure how attached to his fertility Natsu really was. Pregnancy wasn't something she could imagine him ever, ever doing. Well, she hadn't even tried until this exact moment and she found the mental image entirely ridiculous. Natsu had his nurturing side, of course, he had raised Happy, was great with Asuka, and had always had a soft spot for kids and animals in general. She could very easily see him making a great father if he ever matured even a bit, but pregnancy? She tried to let herself imagine him sitting out fights and missions, eating healthy (would he even be able to eat fire?), going to check-ups, and wearing maternity clothes for 10 months. 

Nope. He would probably find that even more horrifying and bizarre than she did. 

Either way, horrifying or not, that wasn't her choice and who knew what else could happen if she left him and something went wrong. Heats, especially first heats, could be dangerous. Organs in males were literally rearranging themselves, and high surges of hormones sometimes even caused seizures.  

 Also, though, Lucy just wanted to be near him. She'd had feelings for him from the moment he asked her to go to Fairy Tail with him, and while they had waxed and waned over the relatively short amount she'd known him, they had always been there. Her feelings for him weren't the astounding, head-over-heels in love that she longed for in a relationship, but she thought maybe they could be. 

 Now they really didn't have the choice. She didn't like having a choice taken from her by something as unpredictable and fickle as biology. While she knew she was supposed to be attracted to big, bold, dominant alphas, she found Natsu somehow more appealing now then when she'd thought he was a beta. She wouldn't go so far as to call him vulnerable now, but he needed her more and in a totally different way than he ever had before. She could help him with this, keep him comfortable and safe, and support him they way no one else could.  

It wasn't fair. It really wasn't. She wouldn't cry now, not for something she'd barely let herself contemplate before, but later. She would let it all hit her after this was over and she would be able to mourn what could have been alone.  

 She passed the bathroom on the way to the kitchen and noticed Natsu had started the shower. She stopped to listen for a moment and her mind screeched to a halt as a moan, sensual and needy in a way she had never associated with the Dragon Slayer, drifted through the thin wooden door. She had been expecting him to be in that phase of his heat, but she had absolutely not been expecting the way her own body reacted to that sound. To the idea that he was overwhelmed and needed someone to ease the same ache and itch that she'd become familiar with.  

 She wondered if it was worse for him. He had a penis, after all, and she'd heard from other whispering, gossipy omegas when she was young that it could become very painful for males. 

 

"Ahh, ah! Damn it, ow!" Natsu hissed, and Lucy almost had her face pressed up against the door at the sound of it.  

 

Desire swelled in her at a such magnitude that she frantically wondered if she'd hit her heat as well, although she knew that couldn't be. She wasn't due for months. 

 

Omegas weren't supposed to be attracted to other omegas.  

 

He moaned again and this time it was followed by a whimper and a thump, his head hitting the back of the tub or something falling off the shelf she guessed.  

 

"Lucy, Lucy, Lucy," he whispered, just loud enough for her to make out over the water. 

 

Her hand closed over the doorknob and twisted it experimentally. It wasn't locked. It was weird for omegas to be attracted to each other.  

 

She and Natsu had always been a little weird. 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone is wondering, Natsu had the shits because in my mind the body would have to, ahem, clear the way so to speak. This might seem familiar to anyone who had really terribly, embarrassing first periods. I'll admit I feel a sick pleasure putting a male character through that.


End file.
